This specification concerns the dispensing of products from a dispensing apparatus in response to transaction information marked on the products.
Dispensing of products to consumers by automated means has been a feature of consumption-oriented economic infrastructure since at least the middle of the twentieth century, if not earlier. Initially, soft drinks and candy were provided from vending machines. Musical performance was dispensed to listeners by jukeboxes. Consumers obtained food from automats. One characteristic of these early machines was the physical and functional integration of sales activity, such as receipt of coins, with the automatic dispensation of products and services.
Currently, advances in transaction technology permit the sites of sale and dispensation to be separated physically, while providing great flexibility in functional and operational integration. Automation of the entire sale, including dispensing sold products, provides a manifold benefit. Distribution costs are cut, productivity is increased, and inventory and transaction data are efficiently managed and effectively documented.
However, as a result of advances in data processing, communications, and documentation, increasingly sophisticated sales transaction technologies have leapfrogged the technologies and modes of dispensing sold products, particularly in retail environments in which the consumers themselves, or their agents, retrieve or take possession of the products without having the products carried to them by an intermediary service. In this regard, “dispensing” refers to delivering or dealing out products from machines directly to recipients, and particularly to apparatus and systems from which recipients take possession of such products from such machines.
A machine or apparatus for dispensing products in a retail environment must make the most efficient use of the space which it occupies. That is to say, it must exhibit a high density of products per machine unit volume. The apparatus also must integrate with automatic transaction means in order to provide efficient and effective delivery of the products which it dispenses, especially in those cases when specific products are to be dispensed to specific recipients. The machine's ability to integrate with a manifold transaction system will also enhance its flexibility in terms of the variety of products that it can dispense and the variety of consumers it can dispense to. A dispensing machine invested with an appropriate degree of transaction functionality also may be able to operate autonomously, requiring integration only with inventory and transaction data management components. In cases where products, such as prescription drugs and devices, must be dispensed under privacy and regulatory constraints, the dispensing machine also must be capable of dispensing products securely to ensure safe delivery and satisfaction of the constraints.